The original topic seems to be dead, but for everyone's food for thought:
Reasons We Don't Do Santa
1. Santa is often used as a way of controlling kids and even if you don't use Santa that way yourself others WILL do it to your children. It's a harmful carrot to set up your children to have dangled in front of them. Not only is it punitive / reward based but it's not taking responsibility on behalf of the parent. "I won't be stopping your presents, Santa will." As a friend pointed out: logical consequence "you put the ball through the window after I told you not to throw it at the window, now there is not enough money to get you the present you would like" is far better in terms of teaching that child something useful than "if you don't stop being naughty Santa won't bring you anything".
2. It does a weird thing, it promotes Santa as safe when in actual fact anyone dressed up as Santa could be anything but safe. Of course Mickey Mouse does that in a similar way but we are talking now about Santa. The message given is: here, this man is okay, he is trustworthy, if he looks like this he is a lovable old guy who wants nothing more than to give you your weight in desirable presents, sit on his knee, confide in him, don't cry, smile, it's Santa. In reality this is a man who has no more reason to be trusted than anyone you might run into on the street. "A Santa-trained child would be more likely to become a victim [to predators], having learnt the principle of ‘behaving’ in order to get rewards from a stranger."
3. It teaches children that presents are more important than presence, it says to a world of children with increasingly absentee parents due to divorce, death, depression, workaholism or other addictions, "it's okay for someone to buy you presents as the only evidence that they care for you". Santa is somebody whom they rarely or never see, but whose entire purpose is to give them things. Giving gifts is one valid way of showing your love to someone, but it's not the only valid way, and most adults would not feel loved by their loved ones if all they did to express their feelings was give presents. The ones who DID feel loved purely by the receptions of gifts and no other thing are at a disadvantage and have likely been Santa-conditioned as part of their formative experience. No matter what your position on Santa heavy emphasis on consumerism is not what we want for our children.
4. Teaching belief in Santa is lying to children. Oh come on, you say, it’s just a little white lie. I say that children are people and deserve to be told the truth. I would not tell them that the bogeyman will come and gobble them up if they are not ‘good’, so why would I tell them that Santa will bring them presents if they are ‘good’? Personally this is the biggest factor for me as I was devastated by the Santa lie my parents told me and it undermines my ability to trust them to this day, cause the message it gives me about them is "I will tell you the truth if / when I like, if / when it's convenient, if / when I'm caught in my lie." This coupled for me personally with my mother's saying "why would I lie to you, you'd only find out" destroyed a huge part of my relationship with my otherwise loving parents.
4b. As well as being wrong, lying to children is a breach of trust. Once you start, you either have to admit to your children that you deceived them, or think up more and more complicated ways to continue. Many parents see preserving their childrens’ belief in Santa for as long as possible as an amusing game. There are various strategies which can be used to prevent kids from ‘finding out’. If a kid, for example, has thought of the objection that many houses do not have chimneys, and asks how Santa would get in to these houses, the clever explanation can be given that these days, he has a spare key to each house so he no longer needs a chimney to gain entry. This could be a harmless game, in which the kid does not actually believe the response, some verbal sparring if you like. On the other hand, if the kid believes the parent, this will eventually undermine their trust, not to mention the immediate effects of discouraging their powers of reason and possibly making them feel insecure because people could be sneaking into the house at night.
4c. It is important to have a clear line between fact and fiction. Maybe not everything will fall neatly on either side of that divide but when my kids watch Thomas the Tank Engine they know trains don't really talk. It's fun to watch, but they aren't being lied to. If I was to "do Santa" then not only would I be lying to them, but also muddying the waters for later times when I'm actually telling them the truth but it requires some faith to believe it. "I love you", "I'm so happy for you where you are in your life now", "I think this person will make a bad friend / boyfriend / girlfriend / boss", and mostly anything to do with faith in God.
5. One criticism I hear often is that children need make believe, and believing in things that do not exist is an essential part of healthy childhood. I certainly agree that children need to have a rich imaginative life, but this has nothing to do with whether or not their families ‘do Santa’. The Santa lie is highly unlikely to nurture childrens’ fantasies, rather it's more likely to impede them by making them believe something prepackaged and very limited. Guy, red suit, fat, snow, reindeer, sleigh, elves, presents, one night. Get it? Got it? Good. It's ludicrous to suggest that if you don't "do Santa" their imagination will be hampered, kids will nevertheless readily fabricate their own fantasy worlds according their unique personalities. This can easily be seen that millions of children growing up in non-Santa cultures have the same imaginative faculty as Santa-trained children.
5b. A related point many Santa proponents make is that Santa fosters the children’s ‘sense of wonder’. I would suggest that any child who needs Santa to bring out her natural sense of wonder must have a very impoverished environment indeed. Are there not enough amazing and miraculous things in the real of world of nature, technology and human experience? My sons marvel at trucks that drive past on the road, trains at level crossings, autumn, dinosaurs, space, underwater animals and flowers, let alone the gospel, without having to worry about how an overweight Coca Cola marketing device might manage to get down our chimney.
6. But what about the ritual of it all? Many children love to hang up Christmas stockings and leave out various treats for Santa and his reindeer. Again, I agree wholeheartedly that ritual can be an important aspect of our lives, and that applies to children too. But why prioritise a ritual that is at best meaningless (depending on how you feel about the Saint Nicholas story and the "back analogies" of a possible "God's gift to the world; Jesus") and at worst controlling and encouraging of materialism? There are plenty of ways families can introduce rituals that focus on family togetherness, caring for others, or the Christian meaning of Christmas, according to their beliefs and priorities.
7. Santa is also exclusive in nature. Children who do not get Christmas presents for whatever reason, or who only get small gifts, may believe that they are somehow ‘bad’ because Santa has not approved of them. Some parents spend money they cannot afford because they do not want their children to receive less from Santa than other children. In the US, it is common for Jewish children to believe that Santa exists, but only visits Christian children! How would this make them feel about their religion and culture? What would it teach the Christian children?
8. Will children feel left out if they do not believe in Santa? Well maybe, but I doubt it. By ‘not doing Santa’, we do not forbid our children to receive a present, draw a picture of Santa, send a pretend letter to him or even see Santa in the shopping centre. We simply do not tell them that he is a literally real, supernatural phenomenon. Our children can get what they want to out of it, without being deceived and possibly suffering later on when they find out that their parents have been tricking them for years. And in any case, children need to learn that it is OK to be different, and that everybody has different opinions and beliefs, that just because someone believes something doesn't make it so.
9. There are more ways "doing Santa" can work out harmfully than beneficially. It's too easy when you start treading down that path of making moral indiscretions and explaining them away as lighthearted to get messed up in controlling, consumerism, lying, hurtful things that will hurt your own soul and hurt your children's souls. Yes, it's not just about the kids, it's about me, -I- do not want to expose myself to the rubbish involved in "doing Santa"
10. Santa : Satan... COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT! :wink:
